Fall 2023 Joint Meeting of the Chicago and Illinois Sections of the AAPT
"Innovations in High School Physics"
October 20-21, 2023
Joliet Central High School
Joliet, IL
We invite you to attend the Fall 2023 joint meeting of the CSAAPT and ISAAPT. Come to learn more about physics, discover new tools and techniques for teaching physics, share your experiences via contributed presentations and Take Fives, and meet old and new friends.
(NPS Photo by Andrew Kuhn)
(Image by Next Generation Science Storylines project.)
Submit an abstract for a 15-minute Contributed Presentation.
Register to attend! - Prepay your meeting fees!
List of Presentations - Click on the tabs to see the details
Attendees - Click on the tabs to see the details
Campus map - Parking - Hotels - Driving Directions - Photos
Registration will be inside the door marked "Cafeteria" before 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
After 3:30 p.m., registration will be inside the main entrance.
Invited Speakers
"Message in a Bottle: NASA’s Voyager Mission & Its Earthly Message"
Ranger Michael Matthes, supervising ranger at Great Sand Dunes National Park. Previously, he was a ranger at Arches National Park, where he led their initiative to gain Dark Sky certification.
Before Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescopes, and before Elon Musk started shooting cars into outer space, there was Voyager. Come explore why this mission remains one of the most important, not only for NASA and the science community, but humankind. Voyager gave us a grand tour of the solar system in the 80s and '90s, traveled farther than any human-made object, and carries with it a tangible, heartfelt message in a bottle – the Golden Record. The record contains music, tribal chants, the sound of a human heartbeat, and photos of earthly cultures and technologies. Guiding this journey is Michael Matthes, Park Ranger, and Dark Sky Outreach Coordinator with the National Park Service in Southern Colorado.
Following this presentation, Michael will facilitate a conversation about what we might include on a sequel to the golden record – a lot has changed in 40+ years.
"Motivating HS Physics Learning by Designing for Justice with OpenSciEd HS"
Laura Zeller, BSCS Science Learning, and Michael Novak, Senior Curriculum Developer, NextGen Science Storylines project at Northwestern University, Adjunct Faculty, Learning Sciences, and MSEd Programs Researcher.
Abstract: Designing for justice in introductory physics means centering inquiry on phenomena that cross the artificial boundary between human and natural systems. The result is physics instruction that not only teaches students to understand the natural world, but broadens their perspectives on how humans fit into natural systems, what constitutes science, and what they can accomplish using physics. In high school, some of the design problems that students are noticing in the world may feel overwhelming, but breaking them down using the ideas and practices of physics can help students find hope and resilience. For example in OpenSciEd High School Physics, students ask questions like: How can we design more reliable systems to meet our community’s energy needs? What can we do to make driving safer for everyone? To answer these, students must use physics ideas and practices to understand/think creatively about design problems that emerge from complex systems at the nature-human divide.
Who should attend: Any physics instructor who would like to explore how students can use science ideas and practices to make sense of design problems that emerge from complex systems at the nature-human divide, using an example from OpenSciEd HS Physics,
"From Lab Reports to SciComm, Teaching Students Communication Skills"
Marianna Ruggerio, Auburn High School, Rockford, IL.
Communication is at the core of the advancement of every field. Too often students glide through an entire academic career without being taught explicitly how to communicate. Over the course of one week AP Physics 1 students participated in a multi-tier series of lessons on communication, presenting their end of year projects in varying written and oral formats. These lessons included dissecting and critically analyzing TED talks, writing their lab report like a blog post, a data visualization primer and lastly an improvisation workshop. By working with these different modalities students gained confidence in communicating their work in the formal presentation
Panel Discussion
Current Trends in High School Physics Education - Friday afternoon
Workshops
"Supporting More than the Three-dimensions in HS Physics with OpenSciEd HS"
Presenters: Laura Zeller, BSCS Science Learning; Michael Novak, Northwestern University
Friday, Oct 20th, 9:30 am - 12:30 pm.
Abstract: Designing for instruction in introductory physics that will be meaningful for all students requires us to consider more than just alignment to the three dimensions of NGSS. It requires anchoring learning in student questions about phenomena; co-construction and refinement of learning community agreements; learning that is coherent from the student perspective, developing incrementally over time; and assessment grounded in relevant applications in students’ lives and communities. This session uses the first unit in the OpenSciEd High School Physics, How can we design more reliable systems to meet our community’s energy needs? as an example of how we can do this by designing the instruction to attend these four key design features. In this session, we will explore how these features shape this unit and transform student learning.
Who should attend: Any physics instructor who would like to explore the first unit of the OpenSciEd HS Physics course and better understand some of the key features of the instructional model.
"IOLab – a multi-sensor device for K1-College"
Presenter: Morten Lundsgaard, Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
The IOLab is a wireless data acquisition system of similar size and weight as a graphing calculator, and thus highly portable. It contains more than twenty sensors or inputs, including a 3D accelerometer, a 3D magnetometer, a 3D gyroscope, wheels which record position, velocity, and acceleration, a force probe, and both analog and digital inputs. Data can be analyzed in the IOLab software itself, or can be exported to a comma separated value file for later analysis.
In the workshop, the participants will complete some the open-ended labs that we are currently introducing in the introductory physics courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Next, participants can explore the many features of the iOLab at various stations including a two-wire ECG-measurement! Participants will get access to an online course that contains prelab and lab ideas for both high school and college.
To make the IOLab experience more authentic, participants should bring their own computer or Chromebook to the workshop.
For more information on the iOLab, see http://www.iolab.science.
Tentative Schedule
Friday
9:30am-12:30 pm: Workshop by OpenSciEd.
1:30-3:15 pm: Contributed Presentations
3:30-4:30 pm: Invited talk OpenSciEd
4:30-5:00 pm: Take 5's
5:00-6:00 pm: Social Hour
6:15-7:15 pm: Banquet @ Joliet Central (catered tacos)
7:30-8:30 pm: Ranger Mike Matthes Invited Talk, Voyager Program, open to the public.
Saturday
7:15 am: Exec Board Meeting
8:30-9:45 am: Contributed Presentations
10:00-11:00 am: Invited Talk, Marianna Ruggerio
11:00 am -12:00 pm: Contributed Presentations / Panel Discussion on Physics Ed
12 Business Meeting
Host: Zak Knott (zknott@gmail.com)
